Last week we were delighted to announce that PR planning specialist Gorkana is joining Metrica and Durrants to provide a best of breed PR planning, media monitoring and evaluation solution for every stage of the PR process.

I managed to catch up with Celina Maguire, Gorkana's Consumer Director, and asked her to answer a very vexing public relations problem.  Over to Celina:

Pet Peeve, noun: something about which one frequently complains; a particular personal vexation

Speak to any journalist and ask them their pet peeve about PRs and they will usually say one of two things:  PRs who ring to “check” they have received their press release and PRs who clearly haven’t read their publication before phoning to sell in their “hot” news.

I hear these two gripes time and again from senior journalists I have in the hot seat as part of Gorkana’s regular breakfast briefing programme to help PRs get under the skin of key publications. On the Gorkana couch to date we’ve had the likes of Lisa Smorsarski, the savvy Stylist editor and her team, Heat editor Sam Delaney and his team, the Glam Media crew, News of the World’s Fabulous team (5.2 million readers and counting) and the boys from FHM revealing all about how they want to be approached by PRs and what stories will work for them.

On May 7, in front of a room full of 250+ PRs, I’ll be grilling Terri White, the editor of ShortList, the free weekly men’s title which has become a media phenomenon, her style director Adrian Clark and features editor Lucy Foster. Terri is planning to spill the beans on some brand new editorial plans for the magazine as well as telling PRs how they can get their client included in its sought after pages.  If you want to know more about the Gorkana breakfast briefings email events@gorkana.com.

In the meantime, I’ve pulled together some little gems - anti-vexes if you will! - gleaned from the journos I’ve interviewed over the last six months about how they want to interact with PRs:

Lizanne Harris, Fashion Director, Stylist

Arrange press events in the morning around 8.30am or in the late afternoon from 3pm onwards as it is very difficult to leave the office once she has started for the day. Central London is the best location for convenience.

Lucie Cave, Executive Editor, heat

Lucie receives around 20 pitches from PRs each day and she and the team can spot which emails are circulars. Offer an exclusive as this will increase the size of the feature, for example they exclusively covered Fern Britton dressed as a man and will always attend celeb parties if they are given a unique opportunity. Lucie’s golden advice is: know the team, read the magazine, familiarise yourself with the sections and pitch to these directly.

Ally Pyle, Editor, Glam.com

Ally encourages personal relationships and one-on-one meetings with PRs wherever possible. She will always try to make time for a coffee or quick lunch meeting. Emails are the preferred method of contact.

Jo Upcraft, Lifestyle Editor, Fabulous

Jo is unlikely to cover anything older than six months, anything that has been placed elsewhere already or anything aesthetically unappealing. Statistics (eg 50% of women saw improved results...) are important and PRs should put those in the first few lines of a concise email, along with an interesting header. PRs should also read the magazine and suggest sections that would suit the story they’re selling in.

Colin Kennedy, Editor, FHM

Colin says PRs should not call before 10.30am – best to aim for between 5pm and 6pm, once the majority of the day’s work is behind the team. He likes PRs to email him, suggesting why a story might suit the magazine, and then follow up with a phone call the following day.

Jon Gripton, Chief News Editor, Sky News Online

Jon prefers to be contacted via email and particularly dislikes it when a cold call is made asking “have you received my email?” However, he actively encourages the personal touch, and appreciates those PRs who have forged a relationship with him over time by understanding the Sky News remit and audience.

Celina Maguire is Gorkana's Consumer Director. Prior to joining Gorkana in 2008, Celina's career incorporated journalism and PR where she has worked both in house and for a number of high profile agencies including Consolidated Communications and Le Fevre Communications.  

Celina is on twitter @celinamary50 where you can follow her to keep up to date with all of her latest PR news and tips. Gorkana itself can be found at @Gorkana. Gorkana also regularly tweets about both journalist job opportunities and PR job opportunities.

Following on in quick succession from the purchase of Metrica by Durrants at the end of October last year, we are delighted to welcome Gorkana to the group today.  The story has been well covered in the national, trade and social media and has stimulated plenty of discussion.

 

We're very excited to be working with Gorkana.  When Metrica came together with Durrants in October, the plan was to build the industry's leading media intelligence organisation covering all of the key stages in the PR life cycle.  Durrants' media monitoring, Gorkana's PR planning and Metrica's PR measurement consultancy means that for the first time it is possible to work with the market leaders as part of one group.

 

In the short term it will be business as usual for all three firms.  As Durrants' Managing Director Jeremy Thompson explains over on Speed MD Wadds' blog:

 

"How soon can we get an enterprise deal for Durrants, Gorkana and Metrica products and services?

 

We’re not going to rush to integrate. The key is stability, and to build something really special for the long term. We are very happy to do enterprise deals from day one though, and have already done a number for Durrants and Metrica combined services." 

 

In the near future, we will create a fully integrated offering in response to the demands and needs of our clients.  We have already conducted significant research amongst the PR industry to help us understand the specific needs of today's PR pros.  But we're always keen to hear more so do please feel free to contact us with your views and ideas.

 

The final thoughts go again to Jeremy:

 

"This move is transformational as it completes the coming together of three market leaders, all with strong reputations for delivering exceptional services and customer support...  Durrants acquired Metrica, the award winning media evaluation specialist in October 2009. Combining Gorkana with Durrants media monitoring and Metrica analysis will give our customers unrivalled access to the ‘best of breed’ solution for every stage of the PR workflow.” 

 

Watch this space!

 

 

A survey released earlier this week further called into question the case for pay-for access to news sites. The survey, commissioned by Harris Interactive, found that just 5% of those polled would pay to continue reading their favourite news site. It should be noted that the survey specifically referred to the site already being to the user’s preference – one would imagine that this figure would drop significantly where itinerant users are concerned. 

As Mike Masnick over at techdirt notes, 5% is actually, relatively speaking, quite high - there are plenty of organisations vying for market share amongst a worldwide audience below 83 million. It should also be noted that this figure falls nicely in line with Chris Anderson’s calculation that just 5% of customers would need to subscribe to a service to make a typical freemium model worthwhile. The figure is, however, significantly lower than the (always somewhat ambitious) 10-15% of users lawyer-cum-saviour-of-journalism Steven Brill recently discussed as feasible. 

Another interesting point to note is that the vast majority (74%) of those polled would “find another free site”, which is fine in the current climate in which users can cherry-pick from a wealth of exceptional free sites, but what of a future where all reliable/readable news sources operate on a subscription model? An unlikely proposition I know but - unless online publishers can firm up an often shaky relationship with advertising revenue streams - maybe a necessary one, as Harris’ ironically named Andrew Freeman notes; “As long as free alternatives exist, consumers will turn to them for their daily news information”.

Other findings of the survey include the fact that, unsurprisingly, ABC1s are more likely to pay to continue reading than C2DEs and, interestingly, that those aged between 16 and 24 are 7-12% more likely than any other age group to sign up to paid-for content. Ironically enough, however, Metrica’s UK Pulse data shows that young adults favour the BBC website as their source for news (63% prefer the site, against 51% of the UK audience overall) which, survey findings aside, found an excellent source of funding some time ago.

Online news websites most read by young adults by highest variation from UK national average 

The opening day of AMEC’s first European Summit on PR Evaluation got off to a storming start today with some hotly debated issues around the licensing of press and online content. As more and more of us go to the web to source our news and the ever decreasing circles of shrinking readerships and declining advertising budgets lead to newspaper revenues falling, it seems that the newspapers and associated copyright bodies are keener than ever to target users of online news sources to top up their coffers.

The financial burden of this through the levying of fees for using content will of course put PCA’s (media monitoring companies), evaluation consultancies and ultimately our clients directly in the firing line.  As the debate warmed up gasps were drawn as tables were banged and polarised opinions came to the fore. Who’d have thought it…?

Maren Heltsche, Martin Wettergren and particularly Katie Paine started the afternoon session with some great insights into the measurement of social media. Normalise it guys; don’t be afraid and be aware that it should always be analysed in the context of the wider media environment seemed to be consistent threads. Happily, this advice sits comfortably in line with the Metrica approach.

The debate about attributing influence (as well as the level of influence and how to quantify it) came up and is clearly going to be a hot topic for years to come. What I found interesting was how almost exclusively the case studies always seem to result in “… and then when it got into the traditional media, the issue really took off!”.  If social media itself is not enough to change hearts and minds then does that make the analysis of it simply an early warning system to what might happen in the “real” media…?  Probably not, but it does mean that although CGM is part of the communications mix, it does need alternative metrics in place to understand its effect. I’m sure the debate will be fascinating as we discuss what those metrics should be.

Later in the day Neil Wholey from Westminster City Council reminded us all that the measurement of communications is not all about media evaluation (let's not forget that AMEC itself changed it’s name from the Association of Media Evaluation Companies to the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) . Increasingly it has to involve market research and the correlation of communications activities with business outcomes. Whether you are a public body or a commercial organisation proving that your communication strategy has had a positive effect on sales, clicks, behaviours or visitors seems to me to be the future of evaluation. As luck would have it the closing debate on Friday is asking just that question… what will our industry look like in years to come?

Let’s hope the answers not AVE..!  

Do look out for tweets from the conference - the hash tag is #BMS09 and myself and my colleague Richard Bagnall will be tweeting regularly - find us here: Richard Bagnall and Jason Weekes.

This June AMEC is hosting it's first European Summit on Measurement in Berlin between the 10th and the 12th of the month.  As part of its preparation for the event, the Association is collaborating with leading PR bodies from around the world to undertake a global study into communications measurement and PR attitudes towards it. 

As AMEC says: 

"This study builds on similar research last carried out five years ago, and will allow the opportunity to compare shifts and changes in communications practice, and to correlate the results from different business sectors and countries."

The importance of this research is underlined by the breadth of organisations that are partnering with AMEC to promote it:

• The Arthur Page Society (a professional association for senior PR and corporate communications officers of Fortune 500 corporations)
• The IPR (the Institute for Public Relations is a US based non-profit that bridges the academy and the profession, supporting PR research)
• ICCO (The International Communications Consultancy Organisation - the umbrella organisation for more than 1000 agencies through their trade associations in 28 countries)
• the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management
• EACA (The European Association of Communications Agencies - representing full-service media agencies and agency associations in Europe)
• CIPR (The UK's Charted Institute of Public Relations - the largest public relations institute in Europe)
• PRCA (The UK's Public Relations Consultants Association, the trade association representing the voice of UK public Relations)

Obviously, the current downturn in the global economy has made the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of PR, and measure its return on investment more important than ever. When coupled with the rise of social media and the challenges involved in knowing what on-line content to monitor, and the variety of approaches to social media measurement, the results of this survey are bound to make incredibly interesting reading.  Please therefore encourage as many of your friends and colleagues within the public relations industry to partake as possible. 

The online survey is being carried out by polling specialists Benchpoint, is available in 5 languages, and only takes 5-10 minutes to complete. 

Take the Global Survey of Communications Measurement 2009 here. Thank you for your support!